


The Belle of the Ball

by usernames_r_hard



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: AU of 5x18 where Rory has been dating Paris not Dean, F/F, Femslash February, not canon compliant because i am lazy so i probably hecked some things up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernames_r_hard/pseuds/usernames_r_hard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of Episode 5x18, where Rory has been seeing Paris in secret, and has yet to tell the grandparents. They throw a party for all of their closest friends and their sons, hoping to find Rory a suitable (read: wealthy) partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Belle of the Ball

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in forever, and this is my first Gilmore Girls Fic, so comments/criticism is very much appreciated. This is also un-betad or properly edited so if you see any mistakes please let me know!

The invite itself should have been enough to make her suspicious. Emily Gilmore, willingly giving up their traditional Friday night dinner time slot? As charitable as Rory tried to be towards her grandmother’s intentions - determined as her mother was to convince her of Emily’s nefarious scheming - by the time Emily was dragging her upstairs to meet her personal hair and makeup team, even Rory was finding it difficult to believe that she hadn’t been conned into something.

Rory thought back to the previous weeks dinner, as her hair was pulled into an elegant updo, searching for whatever it was that had trigger Emily’s present Gilmore-ing.

They’d talked about school, of course, there had been the usual bickering, Lorelai’s flagrant attempts to force Emily admit to the separation, and the usual inquiry over whether Rory was seeing anyone, followed by the traditional unsubtle attempt to set her up with one of the Gilmore’s wealthy family friend’s sons. One of her grandfathers Yale Alumni friends, Rory realised with that familiar creeping feeling of dread that could only come from the realisation that, once again, Emily had played her. Once again she had trusted her Grandmother to have good intentions, to just want to spend some quality time with her, and again she was let down. Thoroughly Gilmored. 

Rory wasn’t often the type to curse, especially not in front of her grandparents, but when a diamond necklace entered the picture, followed shortly afterwards by an honest to god tiara, she was close to breaking point. 

She thought longingly of her cell, trapped downstairs, across what was now a sea Emily Gilmore approved suitors, tuxedoed and at the ready to vie for Rory’s hand in marriage or whatever. Maybe there’d be a duel involved, she quietly hoped. That would be a much better story than “I let my grandma believe I was single for convenience and I ended up trapped in a crowd of ivy league trust fund frat boys to whom i was presented on a silver platter by said grandmother.” At least the Tiara would add an interesting flourish to the story.

She forced a tight smile as Emily took her by the arm and chattered away about something - presentation? posture? Rory was barely listening, her attention focused primarily on keeping a straight face and formulating a plan to get her hands on her phone as soon as humanely possible and plot, if not an escape route, then at least some way to get through the night without having to very publicly inform her grandparents, and many of their closest friends, that she was not, in fact, single, as she had lead Emily to believe - she hadn’t technically lied - and that she was actually dating someone, someone they may even approve of - a Yale student, wealthy socialite family, Editor of the Yale Daily news, an impressive resume, even by Gilmore standards - if it weren’t for the fact that said person was one, decidedly female, Paris Eustace Gellar. 

Trying once more to think the best of Emily Gilmore’s intentions, Rory let herself be led around the room and introduced to son after son of the Gilmore’s closest friends, trying her best to be polite and amicable, but it wasn’t long before she began to feel less like a granddaughter and more like a prize pig - though at least Emily’s sales pitch consisted more of Rory’s academic pursuits than her - whatever it was made a prize pig so special - Charlotte’s Web had been one of the more enjoyable books of Rory’s childhood, but it had not been particularly informative, as far as Rory could remember, on the more specific details of pig rearing. But this wasn’t helping.

It was at least an hour before Emily left Rory alone for long enough for her to escape to her phone, a sequester herself away in a nearby closet. ha dee ha. She decided to call her mother first - the call was brief, but suitably outraged before Lorelai had to get back to Luke and apparently TJ, who had crashed their date and who Rory could her sobbing quietly in the background of the phone call. Lorelai vowed swift revenge on the grandparents, which Rory bargained down to mere justice. Their family had been through a lot, and the already strained relationships could do without the very real possibility of Lorelai going full Inigo Montoya on Richard and Emily, which Rory reasoned, while fun, was not really an appropriate reaction to their crime, which was at this point merely implied - and Emily Gilmore was an expert at that particular grey area of implication. 

Hanging up, Rory scrolled down to make a second call, her thumb hovering for a second over the call button with anxious indecision - she was making a big deal out of nothing right? There was no reason to tell Paris? She caught herself on that second thought - had she, Rory Gilmore, not consumed enough media in her short lifetime to now that the phrase “there is no reason to tell her” in it was doomed to end in disaster and painful miscommunication. She pressed the button as decidedly as one could press the call button on a flip-phone, and held it up to her ear as it dialed.

“Rory?” Paris answered sleepily.

“Oh sorry did I wake you? I’m sorry this isn’t even that important, it doesn’t matter-”

“What is it?” Paris cut her off, more alert now, concern rising in her voice “Aren’t you at Friday night dinner? What happened was there a fight again? You told your grandparents about me and they flipped right? That’s it? Listen I don’t care what those two bigoted old-” 

A familiar fierceness was rising in her tone, and Rory thought it best to interrupt before Paris worked herself up into a full on hulk out.

“Paris! no that’s not what happened - completely the opposite, really.”

“Oh?” Paris said, doubtfully.

“No they cancelled Friday night dinner because they were throwing a party for all their Yale friends, but they still wanted to see me, so they invited me over anyway - i thought it couldn’t be too bad, and they sounded so genuine - and they were even in the same room together! I didn’t suspect any ulterior motives-”

“Fool.” Paris said seriously.

“So I show up and Grandma immediately whisks me upstairs and her hairdresser is still there from earlier, apparently-”

“Ha!” Said Paris scornfully “a likely story”

“So I get a full on Princess diaries style makeover - complete with an actual Tiara”

“oh no.”

“oh yes. And then once I’m finished being primped and polished, She leads me down stairs and presents me to a room full of the Gilmore’s hundred closest friends and all of their sons.”

“oh no. So she presents you to all of Yale’s most eligible bachelors and makes sure you’re the prettiest young lady at the ball?”

“I’m the only girl at the ball.” Paris outrage was infectious, and Rory could feel the beginnings of righteous anger growing in her.

“Do you think the invitations came with a description of your dowry? Or would that be too forward for those conniving little... of all the heteronormative bullshit to pull-”

“What do I do Paris?” Rory said, a little desperation creeping into her voice.

“Do you want me to come and get you?”

“I can’t just leave - I’m apparently the main attraction at this here shindig... I’ll have to talk to them. I’ll have to tell them about us.” 

“Rory you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to.” Paris reassured her “ I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t - but it should be your choice. You can just tell them you’re not feeling well or something-” 

“No.” Rory said with a decisive shake of the head. “I’m just gonna tell them. Are you far away? I can call a cab or something if-”

“I’ll be there in 15 minutes. Tops”

“Okay. Okay. I can do this right?”

“Of course you can Rory.”

“You’ll be here?”

“As soon as I can. Okay?

“Okay.” Rory took a deep breath. How hard could it be? “Okay. See you soon.”

Rory ended the call and took another deep breath - the first one didn’t seem to be working. 

She exited the closet. ha-dee-fucking-ha. She tried to mentally rehearse her speech while searching the crowd for Richard and Emily, but she couldn’t get much more than the roughest of drafts. Hi, republican parents, so i’m bisexual i guess and I’m dating my ex nemesis Paris Geller. You’ll like her though she’s rich. Not her best work, by a long shot.

She spotted Emily and Richard across the room, mingling appropriately with a few of their less eligible guests. Making her way through the crowd to her grandparents, Rory could physically feel her anxiety rising in her chest, and she tried her best to recall that righteous anger from before, the certainty that her grandparents were out of line, and the confidence that this was her best course of action. 

“Excuse me.” Rory interrupted a vaguely familiar guest, she felt outside of herself, on autopilot “grandma, grandpa, could I speak with you both for a moment?”

Emily had a brief moment of almost comical deer in the headlights expression before she regained her composure, Richard glanced almost sheepishly at Emily and then at Rory, and then at his guests, excusing himself. Rory lead them both down the hall and into Richard’s office, the nearest unoccupied room, shutting the door behind them.

“What on earth is this about?” Emily began in her typically affronted manner, at the ready to act clueless or insulted as the situation arose.

“This is- this is about... this!” Rory gestured vaguely, in the general direction of the situation at hand. She scrambled to piece together her half assembled script from earlier and failed miserably. 

“I’m sorry I’m afraid I don’t quite follow” Richard said dryly.

She didn’t have enough time or distance to prepare the speech in the traditional Rory Gilmore method, with a careful tone and the appropriate citations, so in she decided instead to borrow a page from the Paris Geller Handbook of yelling at People.

“Do I look like an idiot to you?” Rory asked, keeping her tone even with considerable effort. “Don’t bother answering that I’ve been hearing about it all night in your pitch - oh! Rory went to Chilton! Rory got into Yale! oh we’re ever so proud of our Rory!” she continued, volume rising.

“I apologise if you found our descriptions less than complimentary!” Emily countered “unfortunately we had to cross even tempered and sensible off the list last minute!”

“Do you think I don’t know what you’re dong here? Trying to sell me off to the nearest eligible bachelor you can find-”

“Sell you? We just wanted to introduce you to a broader social circle, I don’t know where you got this nonsensical idea from - no I do, your mother no doubt. Pray, tell me, what nefarious scheme am I hatching this time?” Emily had moved on to the “blame Lorelai” portion of the argument.

“A broader social circle? Pray tell, does anyone this broader social circle happen to have any daughters?”

“Of course they do they just-”

“Couldn’t make it today huh? But don’t worry about it. don’t worry about any of it.” Rory paused, collecting herself - she’d taken a bit more than a page out of Paris’ book - “I’m seeing someone anyway-”

“DON’t tell me its that Dean boy again, honestly Rory-”

“No its not Dean, it’s someone from Yale grandma-”

“Well then why didn’t you tell us?” Emily said, relieved “If you were seeing someone suitable theres no reason you should keep it from us - Oh! Is he here tonight? It’s not that Huntzburger boy-”

“grandma...” Rory started

“They’re a wonderful family, of course, but he does have a reputation-”

“grandma” Rory tried agin, hoping to catch Emily before she had gotten to worked up.

“I’m sure he’ll straighten out with age, you know, boys will be boys, but he’s just not quite suitable for a girl your age-”

“Grandma please!”

Emily caught herself in the middle of the sentence, as if only just now remembering Rory was there. 

“It’s definitely not whats-his-name. It’s someone from Yale, and from Chilton.” The words hung on the tip of her tongue, she could almost feel the weight of it, but still couldn’t quite form the words. “I didn’t tell you because we haven’t really told anyone yet, just Mom and few friends, it’s just really new and-”

“Well, for heavens sake, Rory who is he? I can’t imagine why you’d need to keep it a secret-”

“It’s Paris!” Rory blurted out at last “It’s Paris Geller, okay?”

Emily was stood silent, in stunned disbelief, Richard seemed to be attempting to convince himself that he had misremembered Paris Geller, or misheard Rory

A heavy silence hung in the air while the two of them processed.

It was broken after a long minute by Emily.

“You can’t be serious? You’ve obviously just inherited your mother’s poorly timed, inappropriate sense of humour.”

“Well, at least you won’t have to worry about me inheriting her propensity for unplanned pregnancy.”

“Rory!” said Richard, scandalised.

“We’ve been seeing each other - officially - for almost a month now. I don’t know where it’s going or what it will end up being but it is a serious and real, monogamous relationship, so unfortunately, the gentlemen downstairs will have to go without for today at least - I’m sure they can find some other eligible young maiden to fight over.”

Rory’s phone vibrated loudly in her bag - Paris had arrived. Rory removed the Tiara and other jewelry, placing them carefully on the desk.

“You know when i told mom about you inviting me for the party tonight she told me you were up to something, and i didn’t want to believe her. I thought maybe you’d have learned from trying to meddle in mom’s life, but i guess I was wrong. Thank you for the invitation, but i have to go now.” 

Emily moved to block her way out, a familiar fire in her eyes.

“Rory you absolutely cannot be serious, can you imagine the scandal? After all Richard and I have done for you-” Emily caught herself there, seeing the hurt in Rory’s eyes and remembering old promises.

“I can show myself out.” Rory said with an uncharacteristic coldness. She brushed past Emily and out the door , hurrying down the staircase and pushing her way back through the crowd to the doorway, and out, to where Paris was waiting. She pulled the passenger door open, and slid inside, her arms covered in goosebumps from the cold, her coat forgotten inside.

Tears welled up in Rory’s eyes and Paris’ hand found hers. Rory swallowed and looked across at paris, who was staring on with concern, and Rory realised, wearing possibly the fluffiest pajamas Rory had seen, her hair in a messy bun, and a pair of rabbit slippers on her feet.

Rory let out a strange half laugh half sob hybrid, and the tears fell down a smiling face.

“I woke you up.” She shakily

“It’s okay.” Said Paris

“‘It’s okay? Is this the same Paris Geller who threaten Tana with serious bodily harm for waking you up five minutes before your alarm went off?”

“That was in the morning. Plus you get a freebie because your day sucked.” Paris in a matter-of-fact tone

Rory laughed again, properly this time. Paris smiled.

“So,” Paris continued, pulling out of the driveway “Where to, Yale or Stars Hollow?”

“Stars Hollow.” Rory said definitively “I want to tell mom what happened before she is attacked with the Emily version with nothing to defend herself with.” 

“Rory!” Paris said, affronted, but with a hint of pride in her voice “that was downright uncharitable!”

“Yeah well, maybe I’ve made enough excuses for grandma and grandpa over the years...” She paused and turned to Paris, eyes wide, “ Promise me you wont let me back down from this? I - I don’t think I will, I just... I’ve always wanted to believe the best in them - I’m just weak-”

“It’s not a weakness.” Paris interrupted, eyes locked firmly on the road ahead “Forgiveness isn’t a weakness, believing the best of people isn’t weak. But you still have to draw the line somewhere, to protect yourself, they might be your family, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to meet a certain litmus test. My parents failed - they failed repeatedly. Today, Richard and Emily failed. They’ve failed before. It wasn’t your fault that they failed - you took them by surprise, of course, but that doesn’t excuse the ridiculous stunt of a party they threw - auctioning you off like meat, I mean honestly, what kind of sexist, archaic-”

“Paris.” Rory interrupted, before Paris got too invested in this particular rant “You were heading towards a point?”

“Right.” Paris said collecting and organising her thoughts into some form of Paris logic. “If you fail a test you don’t blame the test, or the teacher - you work harder.” Rory smiled at the Paris-esque nature of the metaphor “You’ve been letting them skate by for too long because every now and then, by some miracle, they manage to scrape a passing grade. You’re not weak for forgiving them those other times, they’re your family, you were doing what you thought was right. You’re not weak for forgiving them in the past, You’re strong for taking a stand this time.”

“Thank you, Paris. I mean it, that means a lot.”

Rory leaned back into the soft upholstery of Paris’ car, staring out into the darkness, watching for the familiar sights of star’s hollow, which greeted them a few short minutes later.

Paris pulled up in the driveway, and walked Rory up to the door.

“I remember the first time I came here, to work on the debate project, before we went to that concert” Paris said quietly.

“The place looked like a mess!” Rory laughed “because of that rummage sale-”

“It looked like a home.” Paris responded, looking around the somewhat overgrown yard, the definitely overgrown huppa Luke had built years ago. 

Rory took her hand, and led her through the doorway into the living room, with its mismatched furniture and lamps that could, at best, be described as “distracting”.

“Yeah.” Rory agreed “Feels like a home too.”

They stood for a quiet moment, before Rory broke the silence.

“So, Pizza? Movie?”

“Sure, whatever you feel like.”

“Well, first i feel like getting out of this ridiculous dress.”

“I think i could be of some assistance in that endeavor.” Paris replied with a mock air of seriousness.

“Mmm, Im sure you could be.” Said Rory, with a solemn nod. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lorelai returned home much later that night, to find Paris and Rory asleep on the couch, the remnants of a dairy-free pizza on the coffee table, and the end credits of the parent trap playing softly on the TV. Lorelai quietly found the remote and switched off the tv, and was reaching for the light switch when she heard Rory’s quiet voice.

“I yelled at grandma and grandpa tonight.”

“I’m sure they more than deserved it.” Lorelai replied with a sigh. 

“I wanted to give you the Rory version before you got ambushed by the Emily version-”

“And I’ll be available to hear the Rory version tomorrow morning. Now, do you want help dragging Paris into a real bed, or are you good on the couch?”

“No we’re good I think. I already woke Paris up once today, I’m not running the risk of evisceration again.”

“Goodnight kiddo.” 

“Night mom.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed it, please comment if you have any advice or criticism.


End file.
